The night of the Silent Hand
by Lord Sopping
Summary: After they are drowned trying to escape his destroyed undersea base, Dr. Loveless, Antoinette, and Voltaire awake in an underground facility where they are recruited to join an ultra-secret government agency. (Due to the positive response I've received, I've decided to continue with this story, I've just added chapter 2.)
1. Chapter 1

Night of the Silent Hand

**By D.E. Brynelsen**

**©2012**

**(_Disclaimer: _Wild, Wild, West is a copyrighted production of CBS television. I am just a devoted fan.)**

"Damn you James West!" Miguelito Loveless shouted to the heavens, or more accurately, the ceiling of the tunnel he and Voltaire found themselves fleeing down. "And you too Artemus Gordon!" he added for good measure. The two Secret Service men, the bane of his existence ever since they'd first crossed paths, had once again found a way to foil yet another of his carefully laid plans, and now he and his associates were fighting for their lives in the ruins of his undersea base after West and Gordon's sabotage had disabled the pumps that maintained the atmospheric pressure, allowing the water outside to surge up through the submarine docking bays or breach some of the viewports. Given his diminutive stature, the water was already up to Loveless' chest and rising fast; if he and Voltaire didn't reach the chamber with the emergency escape capsules soon they'd be drowned. Seemingly sensing this, the giant scooped up his dwarven master and perched him on his shoulder.

"Miguelito! Where are you?" Her skirts floating up about her in the rising torrent, Antoinette struggled down the tunnel from the opposite direction, her face white with terror. Loveless knew she couldn't swim, and what's more, neither could he.

"Go back!" he shouted at her while waving an arm for emphasis. "We have to reach the escape room!"

"We can't!" She wailed, "The water is too high already!"

"There's an access ladder just ahead. We can use it to reach the upper level, try to get out that way!" Loveless barked out. There were several muffled thuds from where he and Voltaire had come, indicating that the watertight doors were starting to succumb to the pressure of the rising tide. He heard things crashing about, including a pair of discordant tones that heralded the violent demise of Antoinette's beloved harpsichord.

The water was nearly two feet from the tunnel ceiling when the trio reached the access ladder. Loveless ordered Antoinette to climb up first; she clung to the rungs of the ladder, frozen with fear, until he practically screamed at her to move. Encumbered by her drenched and clinging skirts, she arose slowly up the ladder to the hatch above. There was a great shriek of metal and a tidal wave rushed down the tunnel. Faithful to the last, Voltaire hoisted Loveless above his head in an attempt to save him from the torrent. But it was a futile, yet heroic gesture. The water filled the access tube in less then a minute, Loveless' last conscious sight that of Antoinette screaming as she beat against the hatch as the water engulfed her, his last thought, a curse upon James West and a vow to return from Hades to exact his revenge…

_"Sir, he's waking up."_

Loveless opened his eyes to find himself lying on a bed with an angel hovering over him. As his mind began to work again and his vision cleared, he realized it was not an angel, but rather a uniformed nurse who was tending to him. So he was not in Heaven, and better still, not the alternative either, which meant he was still alive, but where was he?

"You've been asleep for the last three days Dr. Loveless." The man in the white lab coat on the opposite side of the bed offered as way of explanation. "Ever since we recovered you and your companions from the remains of your underwater base."

"What is this place?" Loveless demanded as he sat up. "Who are you people?"

"We are known as the _Silent Hand_." The man replied. "We are a secret arm of the Government that like this installation, does not officially exist, and answers only to the highest level of authority. We work behind the scenes to bring about the changes we deem beneficial to the country without having to deal with the normal bureaucracy."

"And what country do you serve?" Loveless asked.

"The United States of course." The man said proudly.

"So I am a prisoner?"

"Hardly. We have been interested in you since your first encounter with Mr. West and his associate, but have been waiting for the opportune time to recruit you." The man smiled as he tilted his head to one side. "Or did you believe your numerous escapes from prison were brought about solely on your own cunning?" The man folded his arms. "The apparent _deaths_ of you and your companions provided us with that opportunity."

The mention of Antoinette and Voltaire caused Loveless to ask, "My friends, are they well?"

"Quite well. We were able to recover you all and bring you back just in the nick of time. The young lady is resting comfortably in the women's ward, and your rather large servant is sleeping in the next room."

"So what do you intend to do with us?"

"As I said, it is our desire to recruit you all. We believe your superior mind can prove an asset to our organization, and in return we can offer you protection from further persecution, especially from Misters West and Gordon."

"You can?"

"Indeed. For example, railroad signals have been known to fail leading to such colorfully fatal events as _Cornfield meets_, or a trestle is somehow damaged to the extent that it can no longer support the weight of a train passing over it." The man smiled again. "But that can wait until later. If you feel up to it, I can take you on a tour of this facility."

A half hour later Loveless was seated next to Antoinette in a electrically powered surrey that hummed as it rolled down a curving passage with their host at the controls. Up ahead was a massive door with the number 51 painted on it. After checking their identities, the guard gave a signal and the door moved upward slowly with the sound of heavy machinery at work. "This is where we keep some of the major unknown technology we've acquired over the years." Their host said as the surrey rolled through into a massive chamber lit by powerful electric lamps. "We are hoping that perhaps you can help us unlock some of their mysteries." He pointed to a large manta ray shaped craft made of a seamless dull gray metal sitting on supports. "We recovered that from where it crashed on the ranch of a New Mexico cattleman named McCain last year. We believe it to be some sort of vehicle for traveling great distances between one planet to another."

"Was there a crew?" Loveless asked.

"We found one being inside, two on the ground nearby the wreck, all dead. The bodies are now being studied in one of the medical research labs. Their anatomy is nothing like that of we humans."

"What is that?" Loveless asked pointing to a large bronze colored ring hanging from an overhead hoist above the giant crate it had been in. Closer inspection revealed it to be two rings, one nestled within the other, the inner one with strange hieroglyphs inscribed all around its circumference.

"We don't know." Their guide explained. "It was found by one of our teams in Egypt during an archeological dig for the New York Natural History Institute. There is also what we think is a control pedestal with large keys surrounding a pale red orb, each of the keys inscribed with a hieroglyph matching one of the ones on the inner ring. At this point we have no idea what purpose it served or what was its source of power." He looked at Loveless and Antoinette. "These two artifacts are just a sampling of what we possess. If you chose to join us, you can help us discover their secrets as well as work on your own projects in your own fully equipped and staffed laboratory. We have already arranged living quarters for you in the _'Ghost Town'_ aboveground, and this might interest the lady, had an 18th century harpsichord said to belong to Marie Antoinette delivered."

Antoinette screamed as a large black multi-legged creature with large eyes set in a vaguely human face came skittering across the floor and tried to climb up one of the surrey's wheels. A nearby technician swatted it down with a pipe and then squashed it with his foot as it let out a death cry. "Don't worry Doc," he said to their guide, "We've still got about two hundred of the little buggers left."

Loveless looked around at the wondrous things in the chamber and knew he had at last found his home, among kindred spirits. Plus there was the delicious prospect of being able to bedevil his two worst enemies without them even knowing who it was that was tormenting them, or being able to retaliate. "When can I start?" he chuckled as a broad grin crossed his face.

_**I originally wrote this as a one shot story, but if you would like to see it continue, please leave a comment and let me know.**_

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	2. Chapter 2

Night of the Silent Hand Part 2

"I'm telling you that Dr. Loveless is alive!" James West slammed his fist down on the desk of the Deputy Director, causing the inkwell and several other items to rattle on the verge of upset.

"We've been over that a dozen times before Mr. West." The man said calmly as he set the photograph of his wife and daughter back upright. "By your own report the flooding of his installation was too severe for he and his associates to have been able to escape, the only submarine craft we detected was the one you and Mr. Gordon used, the depth was too deep for anyone to have swum to the surface, face it gentlemen, Miguelito Loveless now rests in a watery grave."

"How can you be so sure?" Artemus Gordon snapped as he leaned over the desk until he was almost nose-to-nose with the Director. "Have you found any bodies?"

"Well no, not yet. We're still assembling a team of divers to try and enter the remains of the base to conduct a search."

"Loveless has been _dead _before," West said folding his arms, "And has found a way of coming back. Why should this be any different?"

"If that is so gentlemen," The director answered leaning back in his chair, "Then where is he?"

Dr. Loveless pulled his head up from the innards of the missile he was working on with a pair of German Scientists at Antoinette's call. The device consisted of a large cigar shaped cylinder with short stubby wings and a pylon at the rear that supported a chemical fueled rocket motor that propelled it through the air. It was in effect, a flying bomb packing enough explosive power to level a city block, and how it worked was fiendishly clever. Launched from a ramp and guided by gyroscopes, it flew through the sky until its fuel was exhausted somewhere above its intended target and it plummeted back to Earth to wreak devastation. Where it would actually come down was unpredictable, meaning a potential enemy had little, if any chance to prepare, or mount a defense.

"I brought your lunch." Antoinette said as she set down a basket on a nearby workbench while Loveless wiped grease from his hands with a rag. "Is it ready?" she asked looking at the missile he and his fellow scientists had been working on.

"It will be." He responded as he opened the basket and took out a fried chicken leg. "We should be able to conduct the first tests in another week."

"Is this part of it?" She asked picking up a small and complicated looking device sitting on the bench next to a several plans.

"Of this model, no. But I have been working on a smaller version, that can be guided to its target." Loveless took the device from her. "This is part of the guidance mechanism. If it works it will home in on the heat being given off by the intended target, such as a ship's boilers, a factory's furnaces,"

"Or a train's locomotive?" Antoinette prodded.

A wide grin spread across Loveless' features as he thought of a certain locomotive, pulling a certain train, containing a certain pair of thorns in his side. "Precisely my dear, precisely!"

"Jim will you relax? You're starting to make me nervous!" Artemus stood in the reception room off the Oval Office in the White House, dressed in his best evening apparel, a beautiful woman on his arm, watching as his partner and friend paced back and forth.

"Artie what are we doing here?" Jim asked angrily as he stopped and his own lovely companion took his arm before he could start pacing again.

"To be decorated by the President for our part in thwarting the plans of Professor Falcon, you do remember him don't you, Mad genius who'd built himself a super cannon and was wiping out cities with it?"

"We should be out trying to find another mad genius," West seethed.

"Jim, it's been weeks, face it, Loveless is really gone this time. They even found what was left of him and his associates, why can't you accept it as I have?"

"Because they've turned up proof of his death before Artie, and yet he's managed to come back just the same."

The doors to the Presidential office opened and a liveried functionary beckoned, "The President is ready for you now Gentlemen." He said crisply.

_**Two months later.**_

With fire streaming from its tail and emitting a banshee howl, the missile made a wide turn as it swooped down towards the train chuffing along the single track in the dessert. It neared the locomotive and seemed ready to strike when at the last moment it veered away and slammed into a outcropping of rock, erupting in a fireball.

Muttering a stream of curses as he slammed his fist into his palm. Loveless watched the funeral pyre of yet another test of his heat-seeking weapon. Despite all the work he and his colleagues had done, the guidance system still was being distracted from its intended target by stray heat sources, such as the sun-baked rocks of the outcropping. Of course the weapon was not a total failure; the ship killer version had proven successful due to a lack of distracting influences out on the open sea, but there was still some adjustments to its design to be made, such as a means of it being able to adjust its trajectory to avoid the tops of waves in heavy seas.

Scribbling some notes in the small book he carried, Loveless retreated to the large tent set up next to the test area. As he was about to enter, there was a loud blast and he looked towards the direction it had come from, then turned away while rubbing at his eyes, his brilliant mind refusing to accept that he had seen what he thought he saw; a coyote, man sized and walking upright, stumbling away from the epicenter of the explosion.

The man who had greeted him upon his first waking up after he and his companions had been rescued from their undersea base was waiting for Loveless inside the tent, seated at the table on which were arrayed several sets of plans. One that caught his eye was a version of his missile that had a human operator. Oriental writing indicated that the plans originated in Japan or perhaps China. Loveless looked up at his guest.

"We have reciprocal exchange arrangements with some of our brother organizations in other countries," The man explained. "There is currently a power struggle among some of the Shoguns to usurp the Emperor. Your new weapon could be the key to his retaining his throne."

"I don't see a means for the pilot to escape once the missile nears the target." Loveless commented.

"He's not supposed to. You are familiar with the Japanese concept of Bushido?"

"Yes," Loveless said slowly. His thoughts turned to West and Gordon. As large as his hatred of them was, it was not so large that it would prompt him to take them with him in a suicidal fireball.

"Your last test did not go well I see." The man commented.

"It was the guidance system again." Loveless sighed as he sat down. "It is still being distracted by stray heat sources, but I'll soon crack it."

"In the meantime, might I offer the words of an associate of mine? '_I like to play with things awhile, before annihilation.' _Before your dispatch West and Gordon, why not have your fun with them?"

"What do you mean?"

"I understand you have recently perfected your mind reprogramming helmet with our help, and some of your colleagues have developed a variant of the chemical agent you had invented to induce humanity to destroy itself, but now it blanks the memory and renders the brain receptive to outside stimulation and suggestion. Both need to be field tested, and can you think of any more deserving test subjects then your two former adversaries?"

Loveless rubbed his hands together in glee as he chortled, "When do we start?"

A week later

"Artie, where's our train?" West stood staring at the empty siding where just yesterday, a 4-4-0-steam locomotive, a sixty-foot combine and a sixty-foot luxury railroad coach, all weighing several tons had stood. Now all three had vanished, seemingly into thin air.

"Jim, that's the least of our worries," Gordon replied tilting his head towards the bags of cash and coin slung over the saddles of his and Jim's horses and the approaching hoof beats of an enraged posse.

"Artie, I think you and I are in some serious trouble." West said slowly as he shook his head.

"That's an understatement Jim, if we don't find that train, they'll be taking it out of our pay until we're gray bearded old men."

"Artie, you know what I mean."

"Absolutely Jim, question is; how did we get in this fix?"

_**To be continued**_

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